An example in the Democrat-Gazette today of “burying the lead.” The business section included a locally written article about the fairly new money-making venture by Little Rock-owned Stephens media properties. The company farms out rights to its newspapers’ articles to a law firm that sues when anyone, even a non-commercial blogger, republishes a Stephens story without paying.

This initiative has gotten quite a bit of attention. Here, Wired reports in detail.

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The buried lede (newspaperese for the summary of the news in an article)? Fourteen paragraphs into the story, it’s reported that Democrat-Gazette publisher Walter Hussman’s newspapers (which are in a partnership with Stephens in the Northwest Arkansas newspaper monopoly) have signed on. Here’s the article, but you can’t see it unless you are a subscriber.

The news is that bloggers throughout Arkansas who’ve grown accustomed to picking up and printing in whole articles in the Democrat-Gazette best be careful. The Stephens media practice is to sue without warning.

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